When might the world's bleaching coral reefs pass the point of no return? When would warming temperatures cause the Greenland Ice Sheet to collapse and trigger severe sea level rise? These worrying scenarios could happen sooner than expected, according to new scientific research.
The edge of the ice sheet is pictured south of Ilulissat, Greenland, September 17, 2021.
"We can see some potential early warning signals," said climate scientist David Armstrong McKay, a coauthor of the study published Thursday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The latter is crucial in moving heat from the tropics into the northern hemisphere. A shutdown would trigger widespread cooling around western Europe and eastern North America.
Five tipping points — the disintegration of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, coral reef die-offs, collapse of the Labrador-Irminger Seas convection and abrupt permafrost thaw — could happen now, the team finds.